Blogs from Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 16

Oh my god I just don't even know where to begin. Today was definitely one of those days when you totally understand what travelling is all about - I've had the single most amazing experience of my travels! I got up ealy this morning and dropped back my car to the hire company, then I got my bits together (must also add I'd a bit of a late one last night with a whole host of nationalities) and went to catch a bus to the marina - which is about 2 minutes walk from where I'm staying. I met 2 girls at the reception who were doing the same trip, both were called Katie and both were teachers, so we had the 3 Katies off on an amazing adventure. We had to travel for about ... read more

One could probably contest the exactness of 0.0054 leagues...but it's really a hard distance to nail down. At one point, a league was defined as the distance that a person, or a horse, can walk in 1 hour of time (usually about 3.5 miles or 5.5 kilometers). It has also been expressed as 3 nautical miles (or about 5.556km). But who's really going to do the conversion anyway? Actually, I can think of a few that will surely do this conversion...you know who you are...and you mostly work for a telecom company based out of Schaumburg. Anyway...I'm currently reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It's his attempt to summarize scientific knowledge about...well...everything. The universe, our solar system, the earth, geology, weather, physics, etc. At first I thought it a bit odd that ... read more

So the morning we jumped on the ship we were up, packed tent down etc and at the dock for 7:30am! We caught a boat called Compass to the outer reef, about 2.5hours from Cairns. Then jumped on the transfer boat to The Reef Encounter which looked really nice from the Compass boat... then climbed on and walked into the saloon area...we were gob smacked ...thought we were on the wrong boat cos it was so nice and posh!!(bar, dvd area, sofas, tables and even potted plants! lol was much nicer than any hostel we had stayed at.) And the rooms were even better!CLEAN. So while we were passengers we were living the high life (lol) fed fantastic food...first time we had eaten fruit n veg in ages! salads, steaks, roast dinners...and desserts to die ... read more

One of the best days yet... Went on boat trip to outer barrier reef, orginally to snorkel but ending up doing two dives instead..was unbelievable, we found nemo, and for all u turtle lovers out there, we swam alongside one.. they are very cute when swimming. The reef was really cool too- very bright- we put our hands in theses massive clams that shut on us, i cant explain how amazing it was. Before u all get green eyed, there was the downside of seriously puking the whole way there and back ( it was so choppy)..altho by the end of the day I felt I owned my life to the crew who were so sweet at passing sick bags.. it was all quite funny. I even said to the chef guy who made lunch that ... read more

Having read almost every brochure about trips to the Great Barrier reef whilst I was in Cairns I felt just about ready to open my own travel shop..... to compete with the other 5000000 of them that seem to line the streets of Cairns. There are heaps of reef trips on offer here to suit all budgets and schedules - in the end I opted to do one from Port Douglas with a company called Haba who were great. The day started at about 6.45am with a drive up to Port Douglas, this time in the sunshine and with a bit of Kangaroo spotting on the way! A couple of American's were on the bus too along with another young English guy, David, that I ended up hanging out with for the rest of the day.... ... read more